A. Related Applications
There are no applications for patent relating hereto heretofore filed in this or any foreign country.
B. Field of Invention
Our invention relates generally to a dispensing and severing device for an elongate web of material for geographic marking purposes.
C. Description of the Prior Art
Chemical treatment of agricultural land has become accepted practice to maintain and increase productivity. Competition, escalating costs of herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers applied to such land, and the labor intensive nature of farming in the present day all require, however, that expenditure of labor, use of machinery and operation of such endeavors must be as efficient as possible for the activity to be economically viable.
A common means to chemically treat agricultural fields is by use of distribution apparatus including a sprayer for liquid biologic compounds or a broadcaster for such compounds in solid form. Distribution apparatus of this type commonly distributes material over areas of substantial size, frequently over rows having widths in the range of 100 to 150 feet or more, oriented orthogonally to the course of travel of a dispenser. As it is desirable that the relatively costly chemical treatment compounds utilized be efficiently applied, past and current practice has utilized some type of visual marking of an area previously serviced to avoid duplication of effort and materials. Implementation of agricultural marking techniques unfortunately has not been efficiently accomplished to make them generally both economical and effective.
Some agricultural marking devices of the past have utilized dye and foam applied by various spray means onto a field to be treated to indicate boundaries of a portion of a field traversed. Such marking devices have not been completely satisfactory as the mixing and bulk storage of the additional liquid chemicals required for such marking methods and their handling for subsequent application have made the process cumbersome and time consuming. An alternative manner of marking a field has involved usage of mechanical marking devices dragged on the earth behind a distribution apparatus to impart a mark into the surface of a field to indicate the lateral extent of biologic chemical servicing. This class of marking devices creates a trough or indentation in the earth which may be visually observed, but often is difficult to establish without crop damage and usually is difficult to observe.
Other prior art employs paper markers for delimiting boundaries of agricultural chemical application, especially in aerial spraying. This art entails dropping of weighted strips of tissue to the earth by means of gravity to thereby indicate a flight course as an airplane traverses a field. Typical prior art aerial field marking apparatus has utilized paper interfolded accordion style with attached weight secured thereto to draw such marking paper downwardly to earth, where it comes to rest in random orientation.
Strip paper dispensers of various constructions are known, however their application to agricultural marking has not been well developed especially for marking elongate portions of a boundary on the boundary. A past impediment to effective use of a paper dispenser for agricultural marking has been the withdrawal and dispensement of marking paper from a supply source at a rate reasonably coordinated with the speed of a moving land vehicle. If marking paper be withdrawn too rapidly, the resultant marking tended to be askew of an actual path traversed by an agricultural vehicle, and if paper is withdrawn too slowly, inadequate marking results.
A further consideration in practical field use of a paper marking device, is that ordinary cutting means typically utilized are not effective in quickly separating a paper web as it is withdrawn from a hopper, tending to bunch or bind a web rather than accomplishing the severing process.
We provide a vertical cylindrical hopper closable at the upper end by a lid with a stabilizing rod depending medially into the hopper. This rod is medially positioned in the hopper and extends below a marking paper roll. Marking paper is withdrawn from a roll about its core and is thereafter fed through a transition section to an elongate dispersement channel. Paper in the channel spirals about the stabilizing rod by reason of its withdrawal thorugh this structure, and this spiraling contributes to web strength. Our device is functional, if not so well, without the depending stabilizing rod.
At least one driven roller, positioned exteriorly of the dispersement channel, feed paper through a flared conical skirt to a web wetting and separating device that sprays liquid onto the issuing web to thereby weight the web to allow more accurate positioning of the web in a field. Upon command, our invention provides means to halt the roller drive mechanism whereby the spray nozzle will continue to function to saturate a portion of the web at the edge of the deflecting skirt to effect tearing of the web at that point by reason of the web's reduced strength and the forces upon it. The liquid spray is aimed at the deflecting skirt's edge to avoid the web's adhering to the skirt's inner surface. Paper utilized with our invention is preferably of a short fiber, low wet-strength type that is bio-degradable, such as commercially available toilet tissue rolled without a central arbor or core. If arborless rolled paper is not available, however, a central arbor carrying a roll may be removed prior to use.
Our dispenser is mounted on a box-like base that is typically secured to a portion of a boom-like element, carried laterally of a conventional agricultural tractor, utilized in dispensing agricultural chemicals, so that it disperses paper upon an actual boundary of a traversed area.
Our invention may utilize an applied steady stream of liquid imparted onto a paper web at a reduced volume from that effecting separation. The liquid has the effect of weighting the web and tending to maintain its position as it is distributed onto a field. This becomes particularly useful when wind conditions would otherwise disturb position of a dry distributed web. Optionally, the liquid spray may be selectively applied to web material when using very low wet strength tissue, as in the use of such material, mere application of liquid to a passing web might be adequate to effect web separation.
Web material distributed by our device may optionally be continuously or selectively fed by the mechanism. Thusly an operator may conserve web material by distributing discrete pieces onto a field to effect discontinuous marking rather than distributing a single continuous stream of such material.
Our invention may further find application in aerial field marking by use of a somewhat modified species providing a wind tunnel to aid web material dispersement. Wetting the paper web along its length as it is distributed weights it, and upon command, halting the feed roller means to further saturate a portion of the halted web before the spray nozzle effects a separation of the web at that juncture, especially as aided by air flow in the wind tunnel.
Our invention resides not in any one of these features per se, but rather in the particular combination of all of them as herein disclosed and claimed and our invention is distinguished from the prior art in this particular combination of all of its structures that give rise to the functions necessarily resulting therefrom.